DDoS protection for game servers
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) protection is mitigation against attacks that try to overwhelm your server with traffic. For game servers, you need both L4 (volumetric) and L7 (application-layer) protection. Most hosts only have L4.
The two layers
L4 — volumetric (network layer)
SYN floods, UDP amplification, NTP/DNS reflection. Solved by sheer capacity (Tbps of scrubbing) at the edge. Most hosting providers buy this from a partner (Path, OVH, GCore, Voxility).
L7 — application layer
Crafted packets that look like legitimate game traffic but consume server CPU (Minecraft handshake floods, Source A2S_INFO query floods, RCON brute force, FiveM resource enumeration). Generic L4 mitigation can’t filter these — you need protocol-aware rules.
What WingNode does
L4: layered on GCore Anti-DDoS (160+ Tbps global capacity). Always-on, free.
L7: custom in-house stack — not licensed from a partner. We can patch rules for novel game-protocol attacks faster than a generic vendor can. Specifically tuned for Minecraft, FiveM, Rust, ARK, Source-engine games and Counter-Strike 1.6.
Signs you’re being L7 DDoSed
- Players timeout but the host network shows no traffic spike
- CPU usage pinned at 100% with no real players online
- Login queue suddenly overflows
- RCON connections refuse with rate-limit
- Logs filled with malformed packets at high frequency
Frequently asked questions
Why do game servers get DDoSed?
Most commonly: a rival community admin, a banned player, a paid booter targeting a popular streamer, or extortion attempts. Game-specific protocols (Source query, A2S_INFO) can also be amplified.
What is the difference between L4 and L7 DDoS?
L4 (Layer 4) attacks flood the network with raw packets (UDP/SYN floods, amplification). L7 attacks target the application layer — malformed game protocol packets, RCON brute force, login floods. L4 is solved with volume; L7 needs protocol-aware filtering.
Is Cloudflare enough for game servers?
No. Cloudflare’s standard plans only proxy HTTP. Cloudflare Spectrum can proxy game TCP/UDP but is expensive and not always optimal for low-latency games. Most game hosts use dedicated mitigation (GCore, Path.net, OVH Game).
Ready to switch?
4-second deploy. Free DDoS. Wingman AI inside the panel.
See plans with custom L7 DDoS